


Animal Impulses

by Webtrinsic



Category: DC Extended Universe, DCU, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Apologies, Blood and Injury, Caring Dick Grayson, Crying, Cute Garfield Logan, Dissociation, Extended Metaphors, Hugs, Hurt Garfield Logan, Melancholy, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Nightmares, Painful shifting, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Shapeshifting, Sleep Deprivation, Team as Family, Tiger has a mind of itsown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23138848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: After his capture, none of his team seems to realize his struggle with his tiger. Blood is stuck to his teeth and speckled underneath his fingertips, he can't trust his tiger around the team. Garfield isn't quite sure if they even care.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Koriand'r & Garfield Logan & Raven
Comments: 9
Kudos: 55





	Animal Impulses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolfypuppypiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfypuppypiles/gifts).



> This is for my darling Franny who is doing so many amazing things, and I hope this can also count as a house warming gift. I wish you all the best always, and hope we can plan to see one another again. I love you!!!!!

They were supposed to be a team, a family, they were supposed to look out for eachother but Garfield didn’t feel looked out for at all. It’d been a week since they brought him back home, a week since his tiger was forced to the forefront of his mind. 

It’d been a week of him hiding in his room, pretending to be okay as he felt _it_ stirring within. Seven long days of fear and disgust with himself and _ the tiger _ .

His tiger used to be his most spirited being, the most freeing thing to shift his bones into. He guesses it’s ironic that the best part of his tiger was the feeling of tamed primal instincts. Gar didn’t have many instances of control, even less now, his tiger had always been the impossible force while his soul was an immovable object. 

Now his tiger wasn’t even his, or even him for that matter. It was the same gnashing teeth and gnarled claws spattered with blood and torn flesh he saw in his dreams. Memories from his confinement, from his takeover.

It was him who tore those people apart, watching through what people called the windows to the soul. In this case it’d been exactly that, a window, a window he was trapped behind while his animal impulses killed and ate whoever was closest.

He’d tried so hard to pound, kick, and scream his distaste for the tang of rust in his mouth; flesh between his teeth to no avail. His tiger had been lost, the freedom gone, and it wanted out.

Gar had spent these nights restless, eyes shot and body sagging as he paced the carpet continuously, the movement helping ease the bubbling of a shift beneath his skin. It didn’t save the carpet from a couple of snags, but it was better to tear that than someone's throat. 

Realistically he knew he’d need to sleep, he’d been avoiding his bed and it’s temptation for the most part. The times he had slept he’d curled up on the floor, his bed seemed too soft for him, as if he’d sink right into the floor.

Debating the dilemma of too hard or too soft, the shifter took the easier of two evils and crawled onto the bed. Turning onto his back, rolling his shoulders until his body was stock still against the soft cushions. 

The ceiling while speckled with caulk to cover up old cracks was nothing much to look at. His fear locked onto the sight regardless. Boredom fighting with his anxiety, _go to sleep, stay awake, make up your mind!_

His body made it up for him as the room got darker in his eyes and finally closed.

* * *

“No-” A growling roar escaped his lips, muffled by a hand turning paw, drowning the rumbling shouts of an animal's deepest cry. An anguish dispelled by the predatory instincts to roam and hunt, _ and eat. _

His fingers burned as he struggled to contain the claws beneath his skin, pushing through flesh and retracting as Garfield tried desperately to keep them in. His heels dug firmly into the mattress, pelvis tightening as stripes stained his skin before melting back into his usual tan in a hypnotizing manor, the only other time his cells copied the maneuver naturally was when he’d transformed into a cuttlefish on a dare.

Dew claws tore through the backs of his ankles, tearing through the mattress below, snagging on his covers and shredding them completely as his cheek bled from the scratches his claws left. 

The opaque claws staining red with blood as three long streaks dug into the fat of his cheek, the middle claw pushing through the skin itself, filling his mouth with that horrid tang of blood, mingling with the tears falling between the slits of his paws and fingers before infiltrating the new access to his mouth. 

The color of his normally tan skin began oozing a sickly green only seen in toxic fire and glass bottles that’d been long since thrown out to sea. He was losing, his tiger was winning and he didn’t know how to stop it.

The bones in his body broke, snapping, configuring his shoulders into a hunched shoulderless torso of a beast. Fur acting as knives, protruding from his body as messily as one crawling out of a grave. 

Massive paws, covering the majority of his face blocked out any chance of breath, suffocating as his lungs stretched to fill their bigger canvas. His rib cage shifted further down his body, spacing apart. All of his organs were expanding, accommodating not to him but his tiger who was ready to injure and main any that got close.

“Gar?” Rachel’s voice called through the door after a soft tentative knock. It alone was enough to halt his tiger and intrigue it all the same. The anger that filled up in his gullet didn’t belong to his tiger, which was rare.

He didn’t often associate with anger, they were passing strangers on the street that didn’t quite say hello to one another but every once in a blue moon their eyes would meet and no words needed to be said, they could just be.  Garfield hadn’t ever felt the need to interact with anger either, when he had tried to cross the road to meet anger head on, hurt and sadness either blocked his path with pamphlets or more accurately hit him with their car.

He figured his tigers interactions with anger were different, the equivalent to a ringmasters whip, egging it on. Commanding it to roar and perform, to kill and kill and kill.

“Gar? Would it be alright if I came in?” Rachel called out again, concerned. Gar didn’t dare let her in while his tiger certainly wanted her to invade the space so he could tear her apart.

“No,” came out more as a roar, earning a shriek of either suprise or terror from the otherside of the door, his attuned now cat ears heard as she broke down the hall, two names on her lips.

_“Yes, get them,”_ the tiger purred in satisfaction while Garfield from behind seemingly sun filled plexiglass eyes couldn’t help the pull of his heart, aching to be comforted while begging for them to stay safe from the monster no longer in but rather out and about.

“Beastboy,” Robin called, his footsteps much lighter than Rachel’s frantic steps. If it was him in control, Gar would probably take note of that, it made sense for Robin’s acrobatics he’d be light on his feet. How else would he swing through the air with such grace? 

Robin had worked in the circus, maybe it was fitting that he’d know how to handle a rogue tiger. It certainly wasn’t Garfield anymore.

The tiger slashed its claws through the mattress it was sat upon, the springs and cotton littering the floor. 

“Garfield!” The Titans leader barked through the door, at least having the sense not to open it. The abnormally colored tiger jumped from the destroyed bed and onto the carpet, blood soaked nails digging into the fabric, lifting it off from its placement on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” The soft tone wasn’t one he’d heard out of Batman’s former apprentice before. The sound of it gave Gar some control over the raging beast within him. Before Gar could take the chance to run back and crash through his window to save his family,  Dick entered the room, meeting the tiger and Gar head on. Dropping to his knees in submission to whatever fate may befall him, Dick sent a understanding glance his way while Rachel and Starfire peeked in the doorway, Koriand’r looking seconds away from intervening.

“We should have checked in on you sooner. We’re a family, and we haven’t been acting like it,” The Titan stuck a hand out towards him, Gar unable to resist his own temptation came closer, looking for comfort which Dick gave easily, thankfully not by palming the tigers torn open cheek, revealing sharp fangs.

Gar chuffed out a purr to the soft strokes the titan ran along his fur, the two other members of his family took the opportunity to force themselves inside. Tears in both the ladies eyes as they stroked his grass green fur.

“We’re so sorry,” they wept and he didn’t hesitate to join them, body shifting without his knowing into his usual albeit very naked form. Dick pulled over one of the tattered blankets to cover below the belt before they trampled him in a hug.

It may not all be okay yet, but it was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> snap: allisonw1122  
> tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> insta: webtrinsic


End file.
